MAK GUITAR STUDIO

MAK GUITAR STUDIO
Shop no. 44, 2nd floor, KB Complex, Pocket F, Block F, Sector Alpha II, Greater Noida, Brahmpur Rajraula Urf Nawada, Uttar Pradesh 201308, India

MAK GUITAR STUDIO is a haven for tone-obsessed guitarists, tucked inside a modest brick building two blocks south of 12th and Chicon, Austin, Texas. At 700 square feet, the space is meticulously packed: twenty-five hand-wired amplifiers line one wall—from 6-watt tweed Princeton clones to a 1965 Marshall JTM45—each one ticket-tagged with repair status, previous owners, or legendary session dates. Opposite them, a 1977 Greco ES-335 hangs in a humidity-controlled glass case, its custard-yellow finish cracked like antique ceramic. Beneath it, narrower shelves display boutique pickups filed in tuna tins, rolled capacitors repurposed into spice jars, and a drawer labeled “Unidentified Springs” that everyone still digs through for inspiration.

Owner Mekonnen “Mac” Assefa-Kelele founded the studio in 2008 after a decade spent as guitar tech for several touring indie-roots bands. His philosophy is simple—“everything is modifiable, nothing is disposable“—a motto stenciled in metallic green over the bench where he does his work. The heart of the studio is a 3″ thick maple workbench scarred by 15 years of dropped wire clippers and solder splatter. Above it, a wall of Polaroids shows clients from Shakey Graves to a teenage Kikagaku Moyo wearing shop aprons, mid-refret.

MAK isn’t just repair and customization. A side room lined with moving blankets serves as a micro-recital hall: eight stackable chairs, a lava lamp, and a silverface Bassman turned down just enough so the building’s jazz legal defense neighbor downstairs stays placid. On Tuesday nights the “Fretless Symposium’’ convenes—an informal salon where local luthiers, pedal builders, and synth tinkerers demo prototypes. Coffee comes from an Ibrik balanced on a hot plate set to the exact flash point Ethiopian beans prefer, and Mac insists conversations happen at 73 decibels or less so the circuits themselves can be “heard breathing.”

Lessons at MAK bypass conventional curricula. Instead of scales, beginners learn to bend strings into the same microtonal territory as the muezzin recordings from Mac’s childhood in Addis Ababa. Intermediate students pick apart Tony Rice solos by daylight, then reharmonize them through vintage fuzz faces at night. Everything is recorded through a matched pair of Neumann KM-84s into a standalone tape machine; clients leave with the reel at the end of the month.

Fees stay accessible: bench time is $55 per hour, but the “broken dreams drawer” accepts any project for free if the owner will donate two hours teaching someone less experienced. MAK Guitar Studio is where instruments are healed, minds rewired, and Austin’s famous mystique soldered wire-by-wire into living circuitry.

Check on Google Maps